The NHL Alumni Association (NHLAA) has teamed up with Canopy Growth (Canadian cannabis company) to help research CBD based therapies for post concussion brain disorders. This is another great partnership that the NHL has started recently. The first was with Fan Duel, to help grow the game. Now this relationship, which is clearly more important, is a step in the right direction when it comes to player safety and health in life after the NHL. The main research will, “investigate the efficiency of cannabinoids as an integral party of a novel treatment for post-concussion neurological diseases in former NHL players.”
There are a bunch of articles giving the details of this relationship in further detail and I think it’s important to throw a blog up about this. It is clear that neurological and brain damage is prominent in contact sports and this is a great way to help mitigate the damage that these players dealt with and will deal with for years to come. So many players have suffered from impairments such as, depression, PTSD, and dimentia from CTE. Not only is this great news for hockey players, but great news for all athletes who deal with so many contact related issues.
This is a huge stick tap for the NHL Alumni Association, the NHL, and Canopy Growth for spearheading such important research. Hopefully they find the answers they are searching or because the world does not need to see another situation like Derek Boogaard. Derek unfortunately passed away at the age of 28 from a drug and alcohol overdose while recovering from a concussion. It was later found that there were clear signs of CTE which were clearly caused by the sport in which he loved to play.
Again, hopefully through this research the NHL can find ways of treating these disorders without the use of addictive pain killers, which then cause so many more problems in the future. With the legalization of marijuana in Canada and now in many of the states, I think cannabis will be a very important factor in the treatment of sports injuries in general and not just the NHL.
-Papa
